"Oh, Boss Cipher, what are you being so shy for? It's just a bath. No man is going to come in here and peek at you, and you'll feel so much better after you're done!"
As Claire spoke, she pushed Cipher toward the bathroom.
Although Cipher was psychologically resistant to bathing, physiologically, once she noticed her body was stained with blood, she felt uncomfortable all over.
Besides, she really hadn't bathed in two days. For someone who has a OCD in her past life, not bathing for a day was a grave sin!
So, at Claire's insistence, Cipher allowed herself to be pushed into the bathroom with half-hearted resistance.
Seeing Cipher enter the bathroom, Claire went to the doorway, peeked her head in with a smile, gave Cipher a "bye-bye" gesture, and then left. Before leaving, she conveniently closed the bathroom door.
Looking at the tightly closed bathroom door and the towels and bathrobe placed to the side, Cipher took a deep breath. There was no turning back now.
She first quickly took off her outer clothes. Soon, she was left with only two pieces of intimate wear.
When her fingertips touched her undergarments, Cipher suddenly seemed to freeze. Except for her slightly trembling fingertips, the rest of her body was as stiff as a statue, motionless.
But soon, she squeezed her eyes shut, quickly stripped off her last two pieces of clothing, and tossed them onto the nearby clothes rack.
"Whew... All off. Next is turning on the shower..."
For some reason, something that had been a physical instinct in her past life now required her to mutter the simple operation of "turning on the shower" under her breath just to remember it clearly.
After muttering it, Cipher accurately felt for the showerhead nearby.
"Splash—"
Accompanying the sound of the shower being turned on, a stream of warm water cascaded down, embracing the somewhat flustered cat-girl beneath it.
The water first soaked her soft, long silver-white hair, and then the sensitive cat ears on top of her head.
The fluffy fur got wet, and water droplets slid down the fur, weighing heavily on the base of her ears and bringing a strange sensation of numbness.
"Meow-woo..."
This strange numbness made Cipher let out a short whimper. Then her ears subconsciously twitched, shaking off several crystal-clear water droplets.
However, before Cipher could recover from that stimulation, her Tail was also quickly soaked by the water.
Because she hadn't intentionally controlled her Tail, the Tail became somewhat heavy after soaking up water. It then pressed tightly against the inside of Cipher's thighs, swaying slightly in small arcs.
The water flowed down the Tail and over the skin of her inner thighs. The wet fur intertwined with the water, and every friction brought by the Tail's movement felt like many wet feathers quickly tickling her.
"It's so itchy..."
Feeling parts of her body being indiscriminately attacked by the water, Cipher's face flushed slightly. She then reached up and quickly rubbed the pair of cat ears on her head. Although the stimulation from this action almost made her body tremble involuntarily, it managed to drain most of the water out of them.
Then Cipher reached out to pull her soaked Tail away from her legs, but mysteriously, the Tail seemed to go out of control, swaying violently to evade Cipher's grasp.
"Hiss... Tail, stop moving! It's so itchy!"
Perhaps because those few moments had left Cipher a bit lightheaded, or perhaps because it was simply too itchy, she blurted these words out without thinking.
When Cipher realized what she had said, her already flushed face turned even redder, looking like a ripe red apple.
Why did she tell her own Tail to stop moving! Isn't that the same as a human telling their own hand to stop hitting them!
After coming to her senses, Cipher finally focused her mind and silently controlled her Tail to pull away from her thighs.
"Whew... Finally, that's better."
After doing all this, Cipher breathed a sigh of relief. With the ear and Tail incidents resolved, she felt the warm water washing over her body, and a comfortable expression appeared on her face.
'By the way, what does my current body look like?'
After the water had washed over her for a while, this question suddenly popped into Cipher's head.
The reason she was unwilling to bathe—wasn't it because she was afraid to face her own body?
But now that she was already bathing, and since she would have to bathe sooner or later anyway, why not take this opportunity... to have a little peek?
Thinking of this, Cipher could no longer contain her curiosity. She cautiously opened her eyes just a crack.
In the misty steam, a mirror directly facing Cipher was somehow not covered by the fog, clearly reflecting the breathtakingly beautiful body on the other side.
And so, through the mirror, Cipher saw her own body clearly.
Every inch of her skin appeared delicate and smooth, without a single blemish. And because she hadn't seen much light for a long time, her skin was incredibly pale.
The lines formed by her shoulders and neck were elegant and fluid. The mounds on her chest were like small hills, and the black mole on her left breast added a unique sense of allure to her.
Her waist was so slender it could be held in one hand, and her legs were straight and long. Water rolled from her silver-white hair along the perfect curves of her body, leaving winding trails of moisture.
The water droplets remaining on her skin glistened like lustrous pearls under the light.
Looking into the mirror, Cipher couldn't help but stare blankly for a moment. But she soon came to her senses and hurriedly covered her eyes with her hands.
It was simply too beautiful... so much so that she didn't even have the courage to open her eyes again. It felt as if continuing to look would be a desecration of this body.
'I can't go on like this, Cipher! Remember, your purpose here is to take a bath!'
Thinking of this, Cipher took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. Then, relying on her memory from before entering the bathroom, she accurately picked up the body wash and began to apply it all over her body.
After applying it, Cipher put the body wash back and took out the shampoo.
Except for those sensitive cat ears, she applied shampoo to her hair and the Tail behind her.
After another battle between bubbles and water, the continuous flow of water finally claimed victory. All the bubbles were rinsed clean through Cipher's tireless efforts.
With that, Cipher's first bath in the other world finally came to a successful conclusion, although she had basically kept her eyes closed the entire time.